k 



THE RUFF — LAPWING — GAMBET. 183 



With the Muscovy, Wild Ducks, the Reeve, and 



the Ruff, 

 Mix'd the Sea-Pies, the Gambet, and many a 



Chough; 



the latter end of September. They are caught by nets: when 

 fattened, they are dressed with their intestines, and their whole 

 contents, like the woodcock. 



The Vanellus, Lapwing, Pewit, Bastard- Plover, or Green- 

 Plover, h about half a pound weight; length twelve inches; has 

 a pendent crest; breast black; back and coverts of the wings 

 brown-green, glossed with purple and blue. Inhabits the 

 marshes and moist heaths of Europe. It is distinguished by the 

 monotonous sounds of pee-weet, which it continually utters, and 

 with which it flies around or near persons, so as to be sometimes, 

 in moors, extremely annoying ; this it does, it has been conjec- 

 tured, to divert attention from its nest or its young. Feeds 

 chiefly on earthworms, which it artfully obtains by beating the 

 ground about their holes. Gregarious, except during the 

 breeding season; and is said to migrate. Eggs four, olivaceous, 

 blotched with black ; it lays on the bare ground. The eggs are 

 placed in a quadrangular manner, touching each other at the 

 smaller ends : this position of the eggs is said to be common to 

 the Sand-piper, Plover, and Snipe tribes. Flesh good; the eggs 

 are considered a delicacy, and ftequently brought to London for 

 sale. 



The Gambetta, or Gambet, is the size of a green-shank ; head, 

 back, and breast cinereous, spotted with dull yellow ; wing 

 coverts cinereous, edged with yellow; beneath white; rarely 

 seen in England ; inhabits Europe and America, 



A lapwing of Java, mentioned by Dr. Horsfield under the 

 terms of Vanellns tricolor, has the notes similar to '* Terek." 

 It should, perhaps, also be mentioned here, that the Lapwing 

 has been arranged as a separate genus by many authors under 

 the term Vanellus. 



